9.25 Don't throw your phone across the room

Are you a little nervous about packing for college? This newsletter is dedicated to our dear Athena Mentor students who are standing over an open suitcase, wondering how to cram the entire contents of their lives into a rolling box.The advice below comes again from a Munich International School student who gave me quite a start when I asked what was the most important thing he packed for college.

Click on the image or on this link to access the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNLgr8pQXkQ

Athena Advises

Just don't. Just leave it right there. You don't know what you'll need. And as soon as you set foot on campus, you'll find yourself craving something all the cool kids have, and your high school self just can't even imagine.That urge to take everything with you? It's really about something else. You'd like to hang on to your entire life: the safe, secure, known life in which you were, we hope, surrounded by your family and other kids you've known since forever--or at least for the past year, which was filled with stress and horrible stuff and finally, the good news that you were going to college. All that.Even if you're suffering an attack of "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't"--just don't.When your mom offers to take you on the shopping spree of a lifetime, because in her heart, she too is worried that you might "need something"--it's the same something. She's worried you will need her.So just say no. Say no to the stuff, and no to the safety of high school, and no, thank you, to the shopping spree. You're about to leave. And the super important, perhaps slightly obsessional, item mentioned by the student in the video? That, too, can be bought in the campus bookstore.Congratulations to you, and bon voyage! Let us know how it goes!Dr. Marlena CorcoranFounder and CEOAuthor of Year by Year to College, on amazon.com, amazon.de and many national amazon sites